The final installment of the series...
SINGULAR PLEASURES 6
The 1997 Caravan and Camping
Exposition
It is curious just how persistently an outdated ethos can linger. In
the latter part of the 19th century, the Romantic conception of Nature as a
state of mythical innocence, where we might draw spiritual nourishment from the
evidence of God's handiwork, was supplanted by an imperialistic ethos. The
untamed wilderness was something to be conquered and exploited, and it is this
increasingly archaic vision that informs the 1997 Caravan and Camping
Exposition. Barbarously contracted to "Campex 97", it carries echoes
of the Great Exhibitions of the Victorian era, further entrenching its implicit
industrial expansionist sensibility.
How are we to view a construction like the Mallard "Rolling
Thunder" 6-berth air-conditioned Mobile Townhouse with internal
bathroomette, satellite dish and self-erecting annexe? What subtext does it
reveal? The answers must be derived from a matrix of inherent references, which
yield readily to deconstructive scrutiny. Morphologically, it exhibits a
certain purity of line and contour, but this functional aesthetic intimates
penetration, on exactly the same terms as a space vehicle or a missile.
Phallicism aside, the sleek, elongated aluminium shell is a mobile encapsulation
of private space, which can be positioned according to its owner's will. This
is the essence of the imperialist paradigm - an imposition of manufactured
spatial conditions on the pre-existing. This caravan also implies a sense of
containment. The occupants are insulated from the very natural conditions they
have ostensibly journeyed to experience, as though the natural world is
something to be excluded from human space wherever possible. Although the
humans are protected from the depredations of insects and moisture, the
environment remains at their mercy, as the manufactured barriers leave them
free to come and go, and to treat the world they find as they will.
The Mallard "Rolling Thunder" finds perfect allies in the
various genera of 4-wheel drive vehicles on display. In them , the image of the
implacable conqueror of the wilderness is complete. They are the Panzer
division of the soi-disant "explorer", apparently capable of
defeating the most hostile terrain. Like the caravan, they come equipped with every
conceivable mechanism for minimising any actual physical interaction with the
conquered territory: sensurround sound systems, posturepedic seating and air
conditioning are essentially extensions of the bourgeois home environment. The
received message of these vehicles, and indeed most of the equipment on
display, is that the conquest of unreconstructed space is to be effected with
minimal discomfort. You can be "at home" in the wilderness because
the conditions under which you meet it are effectively extensions of your home.
The dialectic of power is evident everywhere at "Campex 97",
in both the dominating, imperial sense, and the corollary concept of arbitrary
power. Somewhat ironically, many of the 4-wheel drive personal juggernauts are
described as "off-road vehicles", even though a large proportion of
them will never stray from urban bitumen. They can go anywhere - if you wish to
do so. To drive such a vehicle is to have the capacity for conquest, if
sufficiently challenged by the passive insolence of the undeveloped world.
Amongst all the paraphernalia for effortless subjugation of the natural
world, the solar-powered espresso machines and the collapsible spa baths, one
item caught my eye. It evoked an era less redolent of anodyne, mechanised
suburbanism. It was a simple fire-blackened camp stove. Amongst the strident
chrome and burnished "space alloy", it whispered gently of weary
stockmen gathered around the evening fire amidst the majesty of the bush. It
gave a dim resonance of explorers perishing miserably from hunger and thirst...
a fate I almost wished on those who came to "Campex 97" to rearm
themselves for new offensives.
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